The hysteria over Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and incorporation into the
Russian Federation still has the Washington policy wonks all a-twitter. We even
have the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a.k.a. AIPAC) calling
for US ground troops to be sent to "defend" Ukraine: apparently
all military occupations are not morally equivalent.

But the reality is that, however loudly the neocon media screams bloody murder,
the resolution of this phony "crisis" is within sight. Even as Ukrainian
troops were advancing on eastern cities taken over by Russian separatists, the
"interim President" in Kiev was trying
to appease his rebellious countrymen:

"I am certain that a large majority of Ukrainians at this referendum,
which, when the parliament decides so, could be held alongside the presidential
election, will favor an indivisible, independent, democratic and unified Ukraine."

While he added that the referendum would take place in "all of Ukraine,"
and not just the eastern regions – which would ensure a victory for the centralizers
– the mere fact that he offered this as an option is significant. For it echoes
the "federalist" rhetoric coming out of Moscow and acknowledges what
the Washington know-it-alls refuse to consider: that many if not most Ukrainians
who live in the eastern and southern parts of the country may not be entirely
thrilled with the coup leaders in Kiev.

The right-wing ultra-nationalists of Svoboda and their crazed allies in the
neo-Nazi Right Sector may be itching for a fight with Putin, but the relatively
moderate coup leaders have a bit more common sense. They know they can’t hold
on to the eastern and southern provinces without an all-out civil war, and they
also know it’s by no means certain they can come out on top in the wake of such
a conflict. What’s more, the corrupt oligarchs who dominate the "interim"
government in Kiev are not about to give up their ill-gotten fortunes in order
to uphold some nationalist ideologue’s idea of "Greater Ukraine."
They don’t want their factories and other holdings damaged or destroyed, and
in the end they’ll follow the money all the way to the peace table.

Sitting around that table in Geneva, probably this Thursday, will be the Ukrainians,
the Russians, the Europeans, and Uncle Sam, and it’s hard to believe the concept
of a federalist solution won’t be introduced, if not by the US and the EU then
by the Kremlin. It’s also hard to see why this won’t be accepted, at least by
the US/EU mediators, as a face-saving way out of the embarrassing corner they’ve
backed themselves into.

After all, the West started all this: in spite of Western commentators loudly
inveighing against Putin’s "incitement" of pro-Russian Ukrainians,
it’s pretty hard to deny the US and its European allies are guilty of more than
their fair share of inciting going all the way back to the "Orange Revolution."
This latest insurrection, too, is a product of Western "democracy promotion"
efforts, with tens of millions handed to our sock-puppets over the years.

And of course we have the presence of CIA director John "drone warrior"
Brennan in Kiev: he just slipped in to have a nice cup of tea, nothing to see
here – so move along, if you please. And while he traveled under an alias, that’s
nothing to be concerned about – because he’s a playful guy and he reads too
many spy thrillers.

Brennan’s visit doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know: anyone who
thinks our intelligence services haven’t been active in Ukraine for quite some
time is being willfully naïve. Not to mention the "democracy-promoting"
nomenklatura, both public and "private," who have been funding
Ukrainian NGOs and "citizen education" programs: these are not neutral
players.

But what game are they playing?

Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, the empire-builders in Washington
and the capitals of Europe have been marching eastward, bringing the "shield"
of NATO ever closer to Moscow’s gates. Their ultimate goal: the restoration
of Yeltsinism in the Kremlin, i.e. the installation of a pliable sock-puppet where Putin and Peter the Great once stood.

The Western powers have no intention of confronting Russia militarily, although
the potential use of force is always a card they hold close. With the US public
war-weary beyond endurance and the European economy dependent on Russian energy
exports, a direct military conflict with the nuclear-armed Russkies has to be
ruled out. However, as John Glaser wisely pointed out, a proxy war is another
question entirely: one can easily imagine an alternate world in which John McCain
is President and a full scale civil war breaks out, with Washington and Moscow
supplying arms to Kiev and the separatists respectively.

Reentering the real world, however, this possibility seems incredible – but
increasingly a possibility. Yesterday I would’ve given it a less than 20 percent
chance of happening: today the odds are considerably greater, although I don’t
see the point of assigning a numerical value until we find out what happens
in Geneva.

Aside from largely symbolic actions like banning certain Russian official and
semiofficial figures and sending extra stuff to Poland, the US has managed to
restrain itself: the President actually does seem like he’s amenable to a diplomatic
solution. But who knows what this administration is doing covertly? Even the
Estonian foreign minister wonders who those snipers were serving when they shot
both protesters and police in the incident that sparked the Kiev coup.

The fog of war has already descended over the Ukrainian landscape: it’s hard
to know what’s really happening over there. We’ve got Right Sector besieging the Rada (parliament), at one point, and then turning around and storming eastern
Ukraine: these, after all, are the only tough guys the coup leaders have at
their disposal these days. The Berkut was disbanded and the regular police aren’t
considered "reliable." That leaves the Right Sector skinheads and
neo-Nazis who are coming from all over Europe to join up with a fascist version
of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Much has been said about the reluctance of the Europeans to take as hard a
line as the
Americans, and this is usually ascribed to pecuniary motives – the EU nations
are too economically intertwined with the Russian economy to bear the cost of
meaningful sanctions. Yet there is another reason for their reluctance which
nearly always goes unmentioned by Western pundits and that is the political
character of the "interim" Ukrainian government, which has a high
proportion of ultra-nationalists whose politics put them entirely beyond the
pale as far as the EU is concerned.

Given the ideology and origins of the Svoboda party, which holds no less than
eight top positions in the Ukrainian government, it would be illegal
in both Germany and France, which have draconian laws on the books against "hate
groups." Svoboda ("Freedom"), founded as the "Social National"
party (wink! wink!), explicitly upholds the legacy of Stepan Bandera, leader
of the "insurgent" army recruited by the Nazis to fight the Soviets
during World War II. The party’s leader has ranted about an alleged "Jewish-Muscovite"
conspiracy against Ukraine, and Svoboda’s youth group, "C-14," bears
a striking resemblance to the infamous Nazi S.A. The number 14 has symbolicimportance
for neo-Nazis: thus the name.

To Americans, the idea of a National Socialist revival seems unlikely if not
impossible: to us, Nazis are simply figures out of some historical drama, a
synonym for pure evil. Europe, however, is another matter entirely: there the
old horrors lie just beneath the surface, and you don’t have to dig down very
deep in the eastern regions of the continent to find evidence that new horrors
are rising.

The Soviets kept a lid on all this, even as they encouraged it starting in
the 1950s with the Slansky
trial in what was then Czechoslovakia and continuing with the "anti-Zionist"
purges in the Soviet Union. When the Soviet empire imploded and Russian influence
receded, these neo-Nazi troglodytes came out from underground and were greeted
with the same propitious prospects for growth that had propelled their ideological
ancestors into power: widespread poverty, endemic corruption, pervasive hopelessness
– and the ever-present need for a "foreign" scapegoat.

The US State Department is now openly defending Svoboda as having "moderated"
its politics – while the party’s activists stage torchlight parades through
the streets of Kiev carrying
flags bearing the dreaded Wolfsangel
symbol, the insignia
of the Waffen-SS division that helped the German Nazis carry out the holocaust
in Ukraine.

No doubt the Europeans find this shocking, as do I. It wasn’t that long ago
that the European Parliament condemned the action of then President Viktor Yushchenko
honoring Bandera as a "national hero" of Ukraine. Listening to US
officials explain away Svoboda, the Europeans can hardly believe their ears.
After all, this is an ostensibly left-of-center "progressive" administration
headed up by an African American chief executive: what are they doing whitewashing
outright fascists who echo the slogans and symbolism of America’s white nationalists?

The neocons are hoping they can get Ukraine into NATO, thus raising the military
stakes considerably, but there’s no chance of that given the country’s financial
condition – and the look of the Ukrainian political landscape. We’ll find out
much more about the latter after May 25, when elections are scheduled. We’re
told the far right is polling badly, but the reliability and sources of these
numbers are dubious at best. The country is ripe for demagogy of the worst sort
and certainly Svoboda and its allies even further to the right are capable of
it.

What’s more, the "interim" government is encouraging the growth of
ultra-nationalist sentiment by sending the military – with a heavy quotient of Right Sector "activists" – into the eastern region, trying to quell
dissent by force when the only hope of holding the country together is negotiation.

The prospect of bloodshed doesn’t deter fanatics: it only emboldens. Even ostensible
"libertarians" like Eglė Markevičiūtė – board
member of “Students for Liberty,” whose leader recently denounced Ron Paul for
supporting Crimea’s right to secede – aren’t immune from the prevailing atmosphere
of blood-lust. Here
she is in the Daily Caller:

"Military intervention is a taboo topic, especially for war-weary Americans
in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, as the free-market Russian economistAndrei
Illarionovcontends,
‘Putin must be confronted militarily. I do not mean acts of war. But the West
should show a military presence in the Black Sea, for example. This is the only
way to stop Putin.’

"Limited military presence, such as an increased NATO presence in the
Baltic States and Poland or troop deployment in Ukraine, is something that liberty-minded
individuals should reconsider as a preventive measure to stop the spread of
Putin’s conquests further into Eastern Europe."

What’s needed is a "preventive measure" on the part of the members
and affiliates of Students for Liberty to rein in their board-members-gone-rogue.
After all, here is a Lithuanian citizen who calls herself a "libertarian"
demanding that US taxpayers subsidize a NATO action to "stop the spread
of Putin’s conquests" – as if the people of Crimea prefer a bankrupt corruption-ridden
Nazi-infested Ukraine to their traditional loyalty to Moscow. What she’s asking
for is US troops in Ukraine – an outrageously nutty idea that not even the most
extreme neocons are proposing.

As for Mr. Illarionov: this isn’t
the first
time that wacko has called for US action against Russia, and it won’t be the
last. He’s an embittered expatriate who has a grudge against the country of
his birth that nothing and no one can propitiate. Listening to him on Ukraine
– or any Russia-related matter – is like listening to Lord
Haw Haw for the real lowdown on World War II.

At the bottom of Markevičiūtė’s piece her bio identifies her
as “an International Executive Board Member of Students For Liberty." There
is no disclaimer stating that she speaks only for herself and not for SFL, so
it’s not unreasonable to assume that her call for US military intervention in
Ukraine represents the view of the Students for Liberty leadership. We’ve already
seen Alexander McCobin, the group’s Maximum Leader, attacking Ron Paul as an
"apologist" for the Russians, while SFL simultaneously denies the
organization takes any position on foreign policy matters. However, when I managed
to corner newly-appointed SFL board member Jeff Giesea on
Twitter, he lamely replied that, yes, non-interventionism is a core libertarian
principle, but that everyone is "entitled to their opinion."

Isn’t it time for the activists who’ve been gulled by SFL’s apparently huge
budget and freebies all around to start demanding – and getting – some straight
answers from the leadership clique in Washington? First Ron Paul is slandered
by these folks, then they come out of the closet as full-on interventionists.
To the many dedicated student activists who have taken SFL as good coin: it’s
time to put your house in order, or abandon ship. There already is a very large
and active libertarian student group, Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), with
over 5,000 members nationwide. Founded by Ron Paul and his supporters, YAL is
doing real libertarian activism – like its "A Generation of War" project,
which last year drew renewed attention to Obama’s drone war and the depredations
of American intervention overseas.

Ukraine is the acid test for libertarians. How they respond is a measure of
how far they’ve traveled from their origins as a subset of the conservative
movement during the cold war era. Those who haven’t come all that far and are
still mired in the old cold war mentality that dominated the American right
in the age of Bill Buckley – no matter what their age – will react with a jerking
of the knees: "To arms! To arms! The Russians are coming!" Those who
have long since moved on – or were never in that space to begin with – are bound
to have a view much closer to Ron Paul than to some Lithuanian lady who expects
us to pay her "defense" bill.

And it’s an acid test for "progressives" and "constitutional
conservatives" as well: we’re seeing all sorts of splits and realignments
on account of this issue. Yes, folks, it’s going to get really interesting,
so stay tuned to this space for more developments.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here.
But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often
made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I identify myself as an "independent"…as I am "independent" in mind… But that's besides the point, as I'm not here to talk domestic politics and break hearts.

Anyway…

This whole "narrative" when it comes to US foreign policy in general has gotten completely screwed up and out of control…even within the so-called "antiwar" community…

It's important to keep in mind Obama is a manipulator–he is not the person many (even some here at AW.C specifically) seem to think he is…but I am not going to elaborate, because…again…I'm not here to break hearts…

Anyway…very simple common sense concepts such as "state sovereignty" have been, on one hand, ignored when it is convenient…and then, on another, perverted when it is convenient.

If you want to frame things in a so-called "libertarian" (as the term seems to be generally accepted today) frame, think of "state sovereignty" as "property rights"…

You may not like what your neighbor does on his own 'land', but it's not your 'place' to trespass… Breaking this social contract can, and will, lead to chaos and come back on you…

There also needs to be an honest accounting of what actually happened in the past in "reality". If you break into someones house and claim the house was yours to begin with, when it was not, it does not matter how "well intentioned" you may be, nor how certain you may be in your "believes"…just because you "think" something doesn't make it so…kind of like if you "thought" you could fly just because you "thought" the laws of gravity are "BS"…

I could go on for hours…but I won't…

US policy makers should be condemned and shamed for "aggression" in Ukraine… Russia is "defending" itself… Regardless of what one may think about the "tactics" used, this is really simple stuff… If you push people long and hard enough, they are going to push back at some point.

From my perspective: it really doesn't matter what "ideology" or political affiliation one may self-identify as: if you don't "get" this, then you're just 'retarded'….

I have been waiting for Justin's response to the onrush of events in the Ukraine and noticed that it has taken until now, perhaps a few days late, to give one, and now that he has, it's pretty lame. In effect, Justin gives the impression that if the Russians have to take over the Ukraine because of some neo-nazis active in it, that would be fine. The muckraking he does on that particular country is astounding – it sounds like every Ukrainian that doesn't want to become Russian is a hater that should be repressed. What's so great about the Russians? Who made them the star in this story? Who gives a fuck about them? Maybe they do about themselves but I seriously doubt that. If the Russians want to hedgehog their way into the 21st century, then put them into deep freeze and forget about them for awhile.

Not as empty and meaningless as the notion that only by hopping on the Putin bandwagon, the Paul bandwagon, etc. can one pass the "acid test" for opposing American intervention.

The whole SFL/YAL dust-up really has very little to do with Ukraine — that's just the hook both sides are hanging it on. Basically SFL is looking forward to a long-term association with Rand Paul, while YAL is jealously guarding the value of its association with his dad. It's the usual — conservatives trying to co-opt libertarians and their checkbooks and sometimes getting in each others' way and having a fight about money, disguised as a fight about ideology.

The weakness in Mr Raimondo's reasoning is that he accepts the neocon premise that Ukraine is divided into a western, "pro-western" (sic!) part and an east and south which is "pro-Russian". He then postulates that the latter is unhappy with the interim government and the former is happy with it. I don't see why the west of the country should be happy with a government that they didn't elect or why the rest of the country should be any less happy with that situation than the west. That particular problem will be resolved on 25 May when a new president and parliament will be elected. That the rest of the world would like to see Putin gone is obvious, but that's because he has turned into an unpredictable wildcard, part Kadaffi, part Milosevic. International relations are based largely on trust. No one will ever trust Putin again and, for that reason, he can never again be a functional president of Russia. Thus, if his own people don't remove him from office, he will sooner or later do something that will force the international community to do so. In that sense, the comparison with Hitler is valid.

Far too many Americans liken everything to a football match…support one side or the other…they are 'for' this and against 'that'…and they fail to allow others to live their own lives by principles that they themselves claim to be willing to fight for…

Dismantling Yugoslavia was all fine and dandy–and, once again we see the former SS fighting at side with the Euro-trash and their American 'partners'…just as in Ukraine (another rump state coming out of the mare's nest of World War I and its immediate aftermath)–but, self-determination for the Ukrainian east?…Who do they think they are?–The American South?…which, gross and vile Britannia and its Napoleon-Light side-kick in France wanted to rip from the United States? Or, Kosovo? Or, one of those damned African countries that no one cares about until they get uppity and threaten to upset the Neo-Liberal/Conservative Corporate Imperium? Then they are fair game to be turned into chowder?–like Libya?

Vladimir Putin was dealt a bad hand and has done as well as one could hope to do in a world dominated by the Banker's Empire. In dealing with the putchists in Kiev, he has shown restraint in the face of this latest, open breech of the compacts and promises made by the New York and City Axis that opened the way for the collapse of the Soviet Union and he has remained remarkably free of vindictiveness in response to the looting of Russia by the 'friends of freedom'–the Jewish Oligarchs and their Western backers…as well as remaining calm and in control in the face of the childishness of his 'partners' in the Washington play pen.

Not being on the ground, I see no other course for Russia than to support the breakaway regions of the East. Their language has been virtually outlawed…candidates and officials who side with them in the capital are beaten, insulted, threatened…troops are being used against the people. We will see just how far the Ukrainian military will go in the suppression of the East…and, just how big a popular mobilization will come about to resist them. One would think that the Fascists would send their most reliable formations to do their dirty work–bolstered by the hired guns, bought with our aid, no doubt. Putin, I think, is wise to let things develop for a bit longer…let them play their hand…and then bite it off to the elbow.

Personally, I hope Putin crushes the bastards. While one can understand the distaste that Ukrainians have for the Soviets, that is blood under the bridge and is no excuse for them to give themselves over to the great grandsons of those who helped bring the very same Soviets to power…sending Lenin in the sealed car to 'Finland Station'…and Trotsky across the Atlantic with banker millions and revolutionaries to help overthrow tsarist Russia.

Well done Justin.
Just a reminder to the good folks here. USA is practicing Mumboo Jumboo Witch Craft medicine.Introduce one easily curable disease to kill another deadly hard to kill disease and then come in for the final cleansing.
Look at USA's supporting Syrian rebels. New game is–infiltrate , no NATO troops and provide military hardware and training. Once both sides kill each other silly–in comes Uncle Sam–no USA causalities. Country is a wreck and easy pickings :^(

I would not encourage Ukraine to ally with the West. What is in it for them with that experience?- a good hosing down financially by the crooked London bankers; a military invasion by Uncle Sam with his "black sites", listening posts, mercenary thugs, and missiles aimed eastward; and another invasion of western schlock consumer goods that will put them into deep personal debt. High unemployment, feudalistic inequality, and the death of any middle class.That is what comes with our "freedom".
We have in this most Western of countries and I wouldn't wish it on anyone else.

Also lost in the US version of events, and almost never mentioned in major news media accounts, is the undeniable fact that for many years Ukraine has been a virtual welfare client of Russia. Nearly all of that comes in the form of generous below market subsidies for practically all of Ukraine's natural gas supplies. That is their main form of heating/power fuel. The Russians paid for use of their naval bases in Crimea that way.
Even then, the Ukrainians were racking up huge past due bills for the heavily subsidized gas. The cultural of political corruption there siphoned off most of the capital and resulted in mysterious disappearance of billions worth of funds. Wrangling between pro Russian and pro EU oligarchs is what ended up as "politics" in Ukraine at the top. Ukraine now needs another open wallet sugar daddy to bail it out. The US or the EU (i.e. Germany).
Since Gazprom is a largely state owned enterprise (which supplies Ukraine its gas) the Russians also regard this affair as dealing with unreliable deadbeats and uncontrollable thieves (pro Russian oligarchs, ousted in the coup, were the controllable thieves.)
Ukraine is a "failed state" but unlike others, the US government wants no one affected by that to take any action. The US intervenes globally using that excuse, where it has no real interests. If Russia has to deal with that situation, with a huge persistent scofflaw debtor, the US/EU cries "bully" and aggressor. All of the smoke and mirrors in the news can't hide the economic reality. Who wants to step up and lend more money to thieving Ukrainian oligarchs? Is everyone's hand now up?

Justin has it right. We are still in a situation where the overwhelming majority of humanity lives in poverty and is struggling to get free of the West and go its own way .

Washington has decided in Ukraine to awaken the Fascist beast to attack Russia. And in the East it is awakening Japanese fascism and militarism to go after China. It is a sign of panic and desperation – and of bloodthirsty criminality.
In WWII China and Russia were weak, but they won.
This time the US is playing with nuclear fire.

"The rest of the world" thinks the US is the greatest danger. On that basis the rest of the world sees Russian power with Putin at its head as the cavalry come to stand against the lethal thrashing about of a dieing empire.

Svoboda ("Freedom"), founded as the "Social National" party (wink! wink!), explicitly upholds the legacy of Stepan Bandera, leader of the "insurgent" army recruited by the Nazis to fight the Soviets during World War II.

I still fail to see your infatuation with trashing this guy. It's like you ate up Soviet propaganda hook, line and sinker. If this were June 1941, I would have supported Stephan Bandera. In 1941, Stalin had murdered more people than Hitler. What other alternative was there?

"The US State Department is now openly defending Svoboda as having "moderated" its politics …"
The language doesn't change much, even 70 years later; if it works, keep using it.
The State Department described Mao and Tito as moderates.

i agree with you and i will put it in simpler terms. it is a FACT that USA spends in "DEFENCE" more than the next 15-20 countries combined. Why is that? To spread DEMOCRACY? Is it for peaceful reasons? what the hell is so har to understand?

What Eglė Markevičiūtė is advocating is for the US to warbait Russia by providing Russia with bomb bait in Eastern Europe. Lithuania and Poland are in NATO. If Russia moves further into Eastern Europe into a NATO member's territory then the whole alliance is bound to go to war with Russia. Does she really think Russia wants to commit suicide? Her tribe is protected with war guarantees.

She writes:
"NATO, the EU, and the U.S. should find the right medium, using limited intervention to secure Ukraine’s Eastern borders and helping Ukranians protect the democratic government they have been fighting for fearlessly this past winter." http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/07/military-interv…

The democratically elected government was overthrown and the country broke down among collectivist ethnic nationalist lines. Would she have defended the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union when her people were Soviets?

She has a lot of weasel words in order to prod the reader into her warped line of thinking:
"Limited military presence, such as an increased NATO presence in the Baltic States and Poland or troop deployment in Ukraine, is something that liberty-minded individuals should reconsider as a preventive measure to stop the spread of Putin’s conquests further into Eastern Europe." http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/07/military-interv…

So according to her a liberty minded individual have to protect someone else's paranoid collectivism. I swear this article reads like a Neocon diatribe. Could it have been ghost written? When I read stuff like this I always think deep down that the writer knows they are full of it. This is why getting into entangled alliances is a bad idea: War profiteers and tribes try to drag suckers into conflicts that they want.

Raimondo, some of your reasoning is illuminating and enlightening, but for Christ sakes when are you going to condemn Putin? When are you going to slam Russian imperialism? And STOP drawing commonalities between Iraq or Afghanistan. See the United States annexing territory? No. Does the United States "control" Iraq? No. Does the United States have any spheres of influence anywhere on the planet, such that it controls their destiny by force? NO.

You are willing to lead lambs to the slaughter, and that's PRECISELY what a rogue Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and others would be, if they weren't entrenched in NATO. Putin was invited to participate, with open arms the West did this. And Russia does NOT have a veto on what security agreements independent nations formerly in the Warsaw Pact want.

Stop recognizing and respecting Russian desire for control over all former Soviet controlled areas. That's cowardly, treasonous, and destructive.

Mr Kenny, I'm sorry, I do not agree with what you say about Putin. IMHO, he is acting VERY responsbly for quite some time now. Before 1990 growing up in East Germany I had not much sympathy to the Soviet empire and the Kind of Communism which was practiced there. But in 1990 Russian troops left Germany whereas Germany is still occupied by US troops. It is no secret that interests of Germany and US are very different. Just to mention one: even the very US friendly FDP politician Westerwelle once started a campaign to move US nuclear war heads from German territory back to the US. He was stopped by US politicians who made clear that Germany has no rights to rule about what the US stations here. Again, in the Ukraine German and even more European interests are VERY different from US interests, since we live together and prosper economically by having good Relations. And we KNOW EXACTLY that Putin is a very responsible politician with whom we can live peacefully! As in any occupied Country, our politicians are corrupt crooks, but a very large majority of German People are on the side with Putin and Russia. are not as stupid as Politicians would like to have them, and do not accept what politicians are doing now to please the US Government.

I don't see where I wrote that. I am simply saying that if I were a Ukrainian in 1941, nine years after the Bolsheviks committed the Holodomor and murdered 5 to 7 million of my countrymen, I would have joined the Germans to help throw out the Soviets. Yet Justin continuously attacks Ukrainians for doing just that because the Germans were bad guys. Stalin was a bad guy, maybe worse than Hitler, but Uncle Sam gave him weapons and support. because that was in our interest at that time to defeat Germany. Ukraine's interest in 1941 was to rid themselves of the Bolsheviks. And the only army available to help them were the Germans.

So I ask. What were they supposed to do? Why are Ukrainians of today being made to apologize for allying with the Germans? Yet others are not expected to apologize for the Holodomor.

Let's not forget how many of our fellow citizens wanted the original fascism to succeed</>

Indeed. And let's not forget how many of our fellow citizens wanted the Bolsheviks to succeed. In fact some of these citizens even covered up the Bolshevik's crimes and denied the Holodomor even as it was taking place.

Washington has decided in Ukraine to awaken the Fascist beast to attack Russia.

Washington does not support fascism. If you knew anything about the ethnicity of most of the neocons you would realize fascists are not at the top of their list of favorite people. The neocons are actually having a blast. They are USING the dumb fascists in a political chess match against their enemy, Putin. And once the fascists are no longer necessary, they will be liquidated. Just look at what happened one of the irbigwigs last month. That fate awaits the next little leader who attempts to put the fascists in control. It's not going to happen. The bankers and oligarchs are going to be running the show. And the ultimate goal, as Justin pointed out, is to replace Putin with a Yeltsin-like figure so that the bankers and oligarchs can take over Russia too.

And in the East it is awakening Japanese fascism and militarism to go after China.

That's not the case. The Chinese are doing more to awaken Japanese nationalism than anyone. It's not the USA, it's the Chinese and their borderline schizo personality who think everyone is always disrespecting them. If they'd tone down their anti-Japanese protests in China and the aggressive posturing over the disputed islands, maybe the Japanese would continue to be pacifists. But the Chinese government seems to take pleasure in rousing the people against the Japanese. If I were Japan, I would start thinking about arming up too.

No way Ukraine doesn't continue its descent into instability if the Obamacrats and Eurocrats are going to insist on imposing a Greek style austerity regime on the Ukrainian people. What the austerity regime is doing is forcing the Ukrainian people to pay for the country's sovereign debt overhead. The IMF economic austerity policy is mostly headed to Russia and Russian lenders to Ukraine, I believe. So much for "punishing" Russia for its Ukraine policy. All they are doing is punishing the Ukrainian people. Would be interesting to see the EU/Russia break down of where the austerity cuts will be headed out of the Ukraine. It can't all be going to Russia. Some of it must be EU bound.

If both EU and Russian lenders, along with the Ukrainian thieves ("politicians") who run the country, would all agree to collectively take a seat in the barbers chair, then they could stabilize the Ukraine. Difficult to imagine that happening, but I would bet the Russians would be up for it for the sake of avoiding war and the Eurocrats wouldn't. Otherwise expect its the Highway To Hell for Ukraine for the foreseeable future.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].